Gifts and Idiocy, in that order

I wanna send mad props to the weather gods that have made this the warmest, best weather for the Christmas season ever for a scooter-riding girl like me. Today, for example, it's 9:36 and I've already gotten the second last of my Christmas gifts! Ran out, and now I'm back!

I'm eating brekkie now -- granola and coffee -- before I head off for the last major gift purchase. (I'm not including my nephew's MC Escher poster or book, since I'll get that after Christmas -- I'm not seeing him till the New Year now. Handy.)

The BAD news is, I appear to be getting a cold. If it's just a cold, cool. If it gets worse, someone's gonna have to answer for this!

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And now for an ass-kicking. What the fuck was Time thinking? Putin? Man of the Year? WHOA.

For bringing stability to Russia... well, yeah, you know, when you imprison dissidents and have more journalists dying on your watch than any recent leader, including at least a couple very, very disturbing and controversial murders, oh, and throw the odd armed force at a Chechyen rebellion or something, yeah, stability's a little easier to come by. Go figger.

Putin! Man of the Year!

As far as legally-elected dictators go, you could do a lot worse than Putin -- that's for damn sure. That he has such popularity and acclaim is definitely a testimony to how good his fiscal and social governing platform's working. It's just that he's also splitting hairs and taking Russia back to pre-Glasnost mentalities. I'm not so down with that, and think Time has no business lauding it.

Communism isn't really something I take huge issue with. Capitalism has its flaws, too. My disdain for this is not about that. It's about oppression and literally taking liberties through governance. Not cool. And if that's what Putin needs to do to take charge in a country known for its corruption and its organized crime, then so be it. I sort of understand using the iron fist to quell the madness of Russian society. Freedoms and constitutions are always easier to enforce on paper than in reality, and I think every government has skeletons hiding in its closets, but Putin's skels are hanging out in the living room with triple highballs of vodka, for crying out loud.

For Time to laud it and claim him the Man of the Year? Wow. Talk about your slow news years, eh?

Oh, and John McCain's a fucking moron for suggesting General Petraeus get the award because of "success" he's having in Iraq. Here's a fucking clue: You don't go launching wars unless you KNOW you're going to have success. That was the first thing the US fucked up. To then, after almost four years of fucking it up, start having "some" success and claim it's a time to celebrate that success because it's a greatly anticipated development (like, 4 years of anticipation) is moronic. Jesus. That'd be like me getting hired for a job, doing it merely adequately, and then getting praised as being the best employee ever. Yeah. I don't think so.

I guess it's only in American government (or any gov, really) service where adequacy is considered performing "above and beyond". Must be nice. This private sector work thing can be a grind when one's actually expected to yield results.

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Off I go to acquire the last of my Christmas gifts! Then to work, which is fine but such an inconvenience when life's bustling as much as it is right now! Then, this weekend, I need to clean my house, set up my tree and do the big-ass food shopping at the Superstore (which actually won't be much, thanks to all the snacks and other foods I've received already as gifts... yay).

It's a lot of work I have yet to do, but I don't need to worry about gifts. Just my crack-den apartment. Fun. And, like, four loads of laundry.

I better not be getting sicker!